doug elkins choreography, etc. performs in Montclair State University's Peak Performances series. All that I’ve seen on the campus of Montclair State University until now is what I happen on while walking between the Alexander Kasser Theater and the Au Bon Pain. I have also, on a warm evening, sat in the miniature stone equivalent of a Greek theater where I-don’t-know-what takes place and … [Read more...]
Archives for 2017
Combining Cultures
This year, Ballet Hispanico will celebrate its 47th anniversary. I know, I know. In the performing-arts world, we only go all out for a year that ends in zero or five. But what’s immodest about a company being proud of its achievements in other years? Especially since the modestly scaled school and company that Tina Ramirez founded in 1970 has extended its dedication to dance and Hispanic culture … [Read more...]
Cunningham Redivivus
Compagnie CNDC Angers - Robert Swinston bring three dances by Merce Cunningham to New York. Merce Cunningham didn’t want us to try to find stories in his dances. We obeyed. But dance can hint at the essential stories that lie deep under narratives that deal with, say, characters falling in love with the wrong person or being transformed into swans. Cunningham presented us with quiet … [Read more...]
Celebrating Thirty Years, Moving On
Doug Varone and Dancers shows old and new works at the BAM Harvey Theater. Doug Varone and Dancers is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year, and during the past three decades, Varone has also choreographed dances for other companies, as well as directing and choreographing operas. Knowing that about him, you might expect that his style is not a static one, and you would be correct. In … [Read more...]
Acknowledging the Past, Moving On
The Stephen Petronio Company revives works by those who have influenced him and offers a world premiere. Once upon a time, a choreographer of “modern dance” was expected to create his/her unique style—a difficult task, since human bodies are the material, and human bodies inevitably become imprinted with their histories. I think I would know a dance by Stephen Petronio if I met it in a dark … [Read more...]
A Museum Exhibit That Keeps Moving
Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker's Work/Travail/Arbeid at the Museum of Modern Art, March 29-April 2. Decades ago, I could visit the Museum of Modern Art free whenever I wanted (it was a privilege granted to those of us who lived a bit west of MOMA at the Rehearsal Club, a residence for “young women in the theater”). In warm weather, I could drop in and prowl the Sculpture Garden—eyeing, if I … [Read more...]
Apollo Meets the Higgs Boson
Emily Coates' Incarnations premieres at St. Marks' Church, March 16 through 18. I know how to re-wire a lamp. I aced high school physics (eventually). While researching Merce Cunningham and John Cage, I read Fritjof Capra’s The Tao of Physics, which fit the zeitgeist of the 1970s. But my brain has to struggle to keep its head above water, so to speak (a lousy metaphor) during Danspace … [Read more...]
Operas That Dance
The Brooklyn Academy of Music presents Mark Morris: Two Operas, March 15 through 19. On the last day of July, 2013, I saw and heard an unforgettable performance in Tanglewood’s Seiji Ozawa Hall. Mark Morris had directed Benjamin Britten’s Curlew River for a cast of Tanglewood Fellows and paired it with his 1989 visualization of Henry Purcell’s opera Dido and Aeneas, performed by the Mark … [Read more...]
Speaking of Gender. . .
Richard Move and MoveOpolis! performs at New York Live Arts. I have warm, twenty-year-old memories of a cold corner in New York’s meatpacking district (you entered the funky, all red nightclub called Mother on Washington Street and exited on 14th Street). On certain weekends, lines waited to get into the latest iteration of Martha@Mother, the variety show co-produced by Richard Move and … [Read more...]
The Pleasures of Taylor
Paul Taylor American Modern Dance at Lincoln Center, March 7 through 26. If Paul Taylor were a visual artist we wouldn’t be so hard on him. Picasso could paint a fish plate and serve lunch on it, and no one would fault it for not being as memorable as Les Demoiselles d’Avignon. It could even get broken or never make it to the table. A Taylor dance involves a set, costumes, music, … [Read more...]